Quote from: BlackHatCoiner on Today at 02:25:42 PM

Quote from: legiteum on Today at 01:36:27 PM

Most people are probably not aware that the above items--and much, much more--are done every day by reputable large financial institutions, who follow standards like 27001 compliance and lots of other standards and practices. Employees of those institutions are background checked, fingerprinted, and so on.

For the second time, there exist no such institutions in cryptocurrencies. The investor has to choose to either do this themselves by taking responsibility of the security of their coins, or trust a stranger that does not follow the aforementioned standards (like 27001 compliance). Or just not invest into cryptocurrencies.

I am not as apprised how every institution handles crypto, although I know PayPal allows you to buy crypto, and are a mainstream financial player.

Of course all of this is moot now, since you can bet on Bitcoin using any major brokerage in the world using the ETF. As I said, I suspect much of the market will move to that if they haven't already (is there some way we can tell how much has been moved to the ETF?).

Quote from: legiteum on Today at 01:36:27 PM

Again, your average consumer does not want to engage in trade craft just to hold on to their savings. Most people don't do this for a living, they do other things.

I thought we were talking about serious investors, who will buy large quantities, i.e. Michael Saylor. Not "average consumers".

[/quote]

Well, I guess there's a continuum of investors from "large" to "small" and sophisticated to less so. Lots of people with, say, $1m+ to invest may well be unsophisticated investors. Probably the ones in the billions can afford their own infrastructure, but as I said before, this infrastructure is not at all cheap to create and maintain.

Quote

Quote from: legiteum on Today at 01:36:27 PM

Find me the last time a major US financial institution like Citibnk lost their customers bank accounts.

Again, bad analogy!

Again, I agree with today's brokerages (as far as I know, and with the above caveat about PayPal), but the ETF changes this conversation entirely.

Quote

Quote from: legiteum on Today at 01:36:27 PM

And "airgapped" won't help you if a thief breaks into your house, takes your airgapped device, and then uses a form of cryptanalysis that has thus far never failed to break even the strongest encryption.

That's why we have multi-sig. To guard funds under divided possession. The investor could save two keys in his house, another two in his companies and/or into the bank's vaults. They could then decide how many keys are required, from the total, to spend coins from the wallet. Depending on that configuration, a thief will have to break into both their house, the bank and/or their company simultaneously!

That's a good next step, and would probably thwart a next level of attacks, and it might be safe defending on other factors e.g. the dollar amount in question, the determination of the attackers, and probably the overall crime environment (e.g. in the US you are probably a lot safer than say a third world country).

But can we just skip ahead in this discussion a few steps to the point where you are describing the security governance infrastructure of your average large financial institution? What you're doing here is building a business case for a truly safe and dependable institution to store your crypto investment (and if I were in investor scrutinizing such a plan I would say sorry, too late, there are ETFs now so this need has been drastically reduced if not almost eliminated).

Quote

Quote from: legiteum on Today at 01:36:27 PM

The existence (and fails) of companies like Binance and the others who have lost customer data speaks, I think, to the fact that crypto investing is basically brand new.

I disagree. The reason why they cannot be trusted with your coins is that they promise to safeguard something that is outside their control. If a thief compromises your bank's account, you just report it to the police and to the bank accordingly. Depending on the time it takes you to realize it, you will likely not experience losses, and might even have their potential transactions reversed. If a thief breaks into your Binance's account and makes a withdrawal, you're finished. The Binance can't help you, the police can't help you etc. That's the fundamental difference between debit money and hard cash.

If the bank guarantees your deposit (e.g. like an insurance company), for instance, then you don't care because you are made whole no matter what happens (and surely you'll pay higher fees for such a service).

Although I don't know how all of the contracts work, I know that brokerages are on the generally on the hook to provide a certain level of diligence lest they be sued for the stuff they lose (and again we're talking traditional brokerages, not the new crypto brokers).

And as a side note, while you are probably right about the state of the pure crypto brokers right now, I would have to think, with tens of billions of dollar in prize money waiting for them, that some companies with trusted brand names will step up and solve the problem. (Again, with the caveat that about the ETF already solving the problem notwithstanding).